Prior art mass measuring devices, such as microbalances, are capable of measuring substances within the microgram range. However, in some circumstances, it is necessary to measure the mass of a substance or the change in the mass of a substance which is in the nanogram or subnanogram range. Such circumstances include the determination of the moisture content of a substance, the boiling point of a substance and the determination of a concentration of non-volatile residues (NVR) in solvents.
One prior art method for determining the concentration of a NVR in a solvent involves boiling a large quantity of a solvent sample, typically a liter or more, in a glass container until the entire sample is evaporated. Any material remaining after the boiling process is non-volatile residue. A microbalance is then used to measure the weight of the material remaining after boiling. However, this process has many disadvantages. First, a large quantity of solvent must be boiled away in order to provide enough mass gain to be resolved by the microbalance; boiling and measuring operation can take several hours; and the boiled solvent is exhausted into the atmosphere. The procedure is labor intensive and reproducibility problems are present due to the ease of contamination during long exposure time of the sample to the atmosphere during the boiling process.